jonathan comisar

composer, arranger, pianist

About

Jonathan Comisar's eclectic music background includes Eastman School of Music (pre-college), Oberlin Conservatory (piano) and  composition with Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Del Tredici.  He recently completed his Masters in classical composition at the Manhattan School of Music under the mentorship of composers Richard Danielpour and Reiko Feuting. His work for orchestra, The Hero's Journey, was recently premiered under the director of New York City Opera conductor, Maestro George Manahan.  

 

Comisar is an ordained Cantor with a Masters in Sacred Music from the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music and served the Community Synagogue in Rye, NY with distinction from 2000-08.  He is a highly esteemed and sought after composer of Jewish themed music throughout  North America.  He has received numerous commissions and artist residencies from synagogues and Jewish organizations, including  Temple Emanu-El of NYC, Central Synagogue (NYC), and Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco), The American Conference of Cantors, who commissioned Comisar to write a choral workfor their 60th Anniversary, premiering it at the URJ Biennial in 2013.  

 

Cantor Jonathan Comisar has served on the faculty of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music since 2009, teaching classes on music theory, arranging, and composition.  He brings a unique spark of musical creativity to his coaching/mentorship of cantorial students, teaching and encouraging them to bring all of their musical talents to their future congregations. 

 

Jonathan Comisar is also a musical theater composer (Public Theater, Jerry Orbach/Snapple, Don't Tell Mama, TACT) and a member of the  prestigious BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.  Comisar's  musical theater piece “Things As They Are,” about the life of American photographer Dorothea Lange, was awarded Best of the Festival Audience Favorite Prize at the NY Musical Theater Festival (2010)  and was twice nominated for the Fred Ebb Foundation Award, 2009 and 2011.

TESTIMONIALS

 

 

©2017 Jonathan Comisar. All Rights Reserved.